Vayra has questions, I now have answers.
1) What class knows the most martial arts? Are they real martial arts like kung fu, or made up ones like krav maga?
...Fighter? Maybe? My games usually don't have an archetypal unarmed martial arts-type warrior class. Unarmed fighting, usually, is only something you do in my games when you don't have weapons. That said, Fighter, because they're the best at fighting.
Most of the martial arts would not exist in real life (though probably would draw inspiration from them) but would be "real" in the context and history of the game, although the idea of a more-constructed martial art is not at all out of the question.
2) Can you start having already made a deal with the devil or do I have to do that in game?
Hmm. This one depends. If we're doing collaborative backstory generation together, where all the PCs link their characters together some way or another, and if deals-with-the-Devil are something that's part of that collective backstory, then sure? Otherwise, though, I'd say it's probably something you have to do in-game. If you express a desperate desire to sign a devilish contract early, though, I'd try to make sure you got that opportunity early—and probably tell you that, too.
3) Do I want you to write an 8-page backstory? Can you write an 8-page backstory, if you want to? If you write something down in it like you're the timelost princess of the Brass City and the daughter of the sun and you commanded legions in the Hell War but was betrayed by your father's vizier but you don't know that, or that you're elf Conan and cooler than everyone else, will that be true?
No.
If you really, really want to, and you write me a TL;DR, and acknowledge that it's difficult for me to incorporate all those elements together in-game.
Probably not. If it is—which is probably only if every other player is okay with it—I will 100% dump extra responsibilities, problems, and challenges onto you accordingly.
4) If you eat someone's heart, will you gain their powers? What about their brain?
No? Like, maybe if it's a big fancy monster and you specially prepare it or it's part of a ritual or something. But usually no.
5) These classes are boring, can you be one from somewhere else? What about a different system entirely?
This is another big "it depends." I usually provide classlists that have a "Recommended" list and then also a "Maybe but talk to me first" list. So you'd have to talk to me, but probably.
"Different system" means different things to different people. Can you play a B/X class in GLOG? Sure. Can you play you a Troika background in Apocalypse World? Probably not.
6) If you make a sword, which one of us gets to name it?
You. You're the one who made it.
Unless you mean coming up with a magical sword as part of your backstory or whatever, in which case see answer #3.
7) Are you allowed to kill the other PCs? What would you have to do to be allowed to? Do you win if you kill them all? How do you win at all?
Maybe.
Have a genuine conversation as part of session zero and talk about whether or not PC-killing is a thing we as a collective table want. If yes, you then have to earn it with sufficient character- and tension-building in-game. A session or three at least.
No.
You don't. Roleplaying games almost never have win conditions; some have endings, some even have "good" and "bad" endings, but almost none have a genuine win condition.
8) Which language stands in for "Common?" Or what are we all talking to each other in? Like the party, mostly, but also everyone else?
Depends a lot on the campaign and the setting.
Assuming the traditional glove-trotting adventure campaign, I usually have the "common language" be a kind of late-stage traders' pidgin that's taken on a life of its own and thus is spoken widely, but is rarely someone's first-language. Like, say, Polari, but with the wide spread of Esperanto, but also successful and largely syncretic, and now with a life of its own.
That said, I am a huge fan of having lots of tiny shitty villages that the party travels through (and resupplies from) have nobody who speaks the trade tongue. Not knowing most of the language is a critical part of strangers-in-a-strange-land, in my view.
9) How do you learn to talk to rocks? Not once a day, but just, like, normally?
I don't know? Probably either some kind of druidic ritual, or else by being descended from a stony creature, or possibly by being some stripe of ultra-ascended-enlightened grandmaster. Or maybe just by being an elf? (Or a dwarf? Or a gnome?)
I really don't know.
10) Which kinds of wizards get to serve kings and live in towers and shit, and which ones are run out of town or stoned to death in the streets? Can you be both? At the same time?
Again, depends a lot on the campaign and setting. Generally, though, the wizards that get to live in towers and serve monarchs are the ones that go to (magic) school and sign a bunch of paperwork and have their true names and blood type and everything locked in a CIA-analogue vault somewhere. Usually. Otherwise, wizards usually get reported to the local authorities, who won't hang you immediately or anything, but will definitely ask some strongly-worded questions. Unless they're directly beneficial (your healers, crop-growers, cold-warders-off, etc.), in which case the common folk turn a blind eye and try not to draw attention to you or themselves.
You probably cannot be both. School-and-paperwork wizards have badges and papers and things, which generally prevents the authority-questioning, and wizards that get their magic elsewhere usually can't then fill out the paperwork without strongly-worded questions.
That said, you could play a paperwork wizard who's gone rogue, or a wild wizard that's too useful for the CIA to kill, or some combination thereupon. Worth thinking about and planning with the others.
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Ten questions, ten answers. Not sure how I feel about these questions, not sure how I feel about my own answers.
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